Post Numéro: 107 de Enrico Cernuschi 13 Mai 2008, 19:37
Given, anyway, the availability of the freighters, the passenger ships, the harbours not bombed or mined, by miracle, by the Germans with the following loss of time for minesweeping ect.; a total of tugs, pontoons and cranes to take the tanks (and the artillery? And the engineering materials? And how to subtract those same weapons to the army which was still fighing on the field? What about the morale of the relinqueshed troops? And the state of the roads and of the railways? How to have the necessary discipline on the roads? French firing squads at will for the civilians? The more anyone study this matter the less is probable indeed). What then?
Where to barrack an half of million of soldiers? How to feed them? British supplies? And from where? Argentina, Australia or, again, USA? How much time for the first deliveres? And in the meanwhile?
Where are the sanitary facilities for this huge mass of people in a warm country during the following Summer? And the field kitchens? Without them the soldiers don't eat. They are, however, cumbersome. More ships for them too (Don't forget as Napoleon - again, vive l'Empereur - said a soldier is walking with his stomach, not on his bare feet)
To manifacture workshops for ammunitions is a sentence. To do it is quite an other matter. Stop with the pipedreams gentlemen. Bullets neex explosive and this material is not available in the field or on the trees. It must be made by factories which were absent (Of course. No colonial power had the tendency to allow this kind of production abroad). And the chemical? Imports from UK? No as the British capacity was in 1940 was a very small one and she had to import from Greece the bullets for the Besa machine guns of her tanks. USA. Not in 1940 or in 1941, maybe in 1942. What during this gap?
Any manifacture, then, needs workers. You had to add at the 500.000 soldiers some dozens of thousands of skilled workers too. How to squeeze them in not existent enough ships? It would be easier to transfer the whole France in Africa and to allow Germany and Italy to colonize a desert Douce France. Voyons...
Pétain menaced to give up the fleet and to fight in North Africa. Voilà le Marechal again. I would consider this declaration an empty menace the old soldier tried, as it was his duty, to get something from the winner. He did his duty even if he didn't believe a single word of his own sentence. Having choice to offer himself for his country what he had to do?
The same for Gen. Huntzinger, an always ready gentleman who was going to sail for Africa or to fight (still in Africa) in Dec. 1940 and late 1941 against the British. An other good solider who know the duty is not to di politics, but to obey frost and last. It's curious, the more I do a cross examination of my opposer theories, the more I find the so called Vichy management was formed by generous patriots whose memory was later clearly insulted by a storyography which was desperately trying to demonstrate to have always won at any time forgetting that the defeat and the necessity, sometines, to bent are only aspects of the life and a statistically unavoidable accident in the centuries life of any people.
My honourable opposer wrote about excellent studies against Weygand and Adm. Auphan conclusions. If they are of the same level of the argouments he quoted I would be really puzzled. First why did they wrote after 1945 and did not spoke in June 1940? Second To have a 500 modern fighters force (not considering losses, of course) is a curious theory. What with the lives of the engines? It was measured in hours. The crossing of the Med. had been a test and many hours had yet been spent ion May and June 1940 in the skies of France. What about the lack of sand filters? The lack of this only item can destroy an engine efficiency in less than 10 hours of flight. The British had to sent the filters, manifactred at Home, to the RAF squadrions in Egypt during late Summer 1940. The French chances to made then in North Africa during that same season was zero.
And the rotors and the wings bent? The only tools rto repair then when battered were hammers.
To send ten squadrons of fighters after the victory of the Battle of Britain. And who could grant the French that battle would be won and when? The same request for ten squadrons in May 1940 had been trashed, after some empty promises, by those same Britons who would have to respect that same word in a not definited future? A very optimistic politician of the Massilia could, perhaps, believe at such a program, but the majoirty of the country not (an d here we are again at the political fancy of all this debate).
And what during the gap between the immediate going on of the war in North Africa and the coming of the first RAF squadrons during the next October?
The greatest mistake of an historian is the post hoc ergo propter hoc. Knowing what had happened to presume actions which, automatically, adapt them at the reality. The true exercise is to verify which were the options at the time and to discover which were the more probable at the time of the choices as the rule for a people is always to seize the more prudent. A single man can jump on a plane at the last minute and to land in Britain. The fate of more than 40 millions of citizens is always a very different and much more difficoult one.
The record of harbours (not arsenals) quoted by my most honourable opposer is the clear proof his ideas are, at best, someway confused.
Dakar? I quoted Richelieu. That base, lacking a dock, was unable to repair that battleship, but only to patch her, with the following loss of speed and reduced range, after about one year of painful works.
Bizerte? The British had evacuated the Mediterranean Fleet from Malta in April 1939 as a consequence of the air menace and the clear and present danger of war. When the French did the same in April 1940 Adm. Cunningham was furious (the usual double standard...). The Marine Nationale thought too that base was too much exposed. Malta was used again as a standard base (an dnot only a tip and run facility) since June 1943. Could Bizerte been used in a different and much more dangerous way? I have got some doubts.
Alexandrie. The little arsenal was unable to provide for the Mediterranean Fleet even with the support of many big auxiliary ships like HMS Resource and Medway. It could not handle the French men of war too. Then don't forget the Sicilian Narrows were crossed since June 1940 until late May 1943 by more than four freighters as a big total.
My previous last sentence at least. France, as an autonomous subject of big politics disappeared in June 1940.
Not considering the De Gaulle tiny compagnia di ventura and the Marechal endeavours to save France for the French it was, since Nov. 1942, only a B series power which had to supply cannon fodder (better if coloured) for the Allies, was bent by the treaty of 22 Nov. 1942 which was even worste than the Italian armistices with the Anglosaxons by the economical point of view and and remained in force untile late 1945, was unable to fight without the supplies from USA and had no place in the political directon of the war and of the peace.
Something not too much different from the Kingdom of Italy after 8 Sept. 1943 (or the Fascist Republic too) or Romania and Bulgaria in 1944-1945.
Least, but not last I would underline that I never dared to do any comment about the gallantry (valeur) of the French people. It would be a bad taste exercise and a stupid one too. A sincere admiration is my sentiment for him yesterday, today and in the future.
It was able to product at any time patriots who defended their country against any odds and any adversary form any direction. I would consider debatable to distinguish between the soldiers of the 1939-1940 campaing (and the ones who had to endure captivity until 1945), the ones who were attacked by the British and the Americans in 1940-1942 (and the Thai and the Japanese in the Far East), the (few) Free French, the army who fought in very miserable conditions in Tunisia in 1942-1943, their better clothed comrades in Italy and France during the following two years and the ones (few them too) who believed the right path was an other one on Germany side since 1941 until the bitter end in 1945.
I believe too there were honest people on both sides during the 1941-1944 Civil war too, even if it's difficoult to distinghish them from bandits and terrorist active on the two fronts (and who were often able to cross happy the respective lines as is th erule in any intestine conflict).
The greatest hero, anyway, in my opinion, was Jacques Bonhomme who had to feed his family, survive under the bombs, avoid the Civil war and was so decent, at the end of that war, to forget everything and to rebuilt again not only the country, but its memory, forgiving the many crimes of both sides and thinking at the future of his patrie and at the new generation's one too repulsing the very idea to use those difficoult years as a tool for his career and a weapon against the opposite party faith.
Greetings
EC